Longtubes vs offroad mid

So I know i'm probably beating a dead horse, I couldn't find any of the specific info that I was looking for though. From an offroad x to longtubes offroad x, what is the HP gains, roughly maybe 10-15 at most? Is this even worth essentially, car is a daily, and I won't have enough money for boost until the end of college(3-4 more years). I Got a set of SP longtubes off of ebay for 200$, bad thing being I didn't get the mid pipe or connection pipes. I did find a 3 inch ARH x, which I got pretty cheap, and now I just need to come up with a set of legs, or the correct mid. I currently do have a pypes 3 inch x, so my question being am I better off just selling the X and the longtubes, and putting my money towards something like a driveshaft? Or just find a set of legs and run it?

SP meaning stainless power? If so I'd say they're worth throwing in.
Longtubes are about 10-15 at peak, but you gain a bunch in the low end too. I definitely felt the difference.
They will also help quite a bit with any other mods you do in the future, whether it's an intake manifold or boost. The only reason I'd say don't bother is if you're planning on a turbo build.

I will go against the grain here and say they are not worth the hassle unless your installing them yourself, the install will likely cost you more than the parts and you are correct about the gains over a O/R mid.

Spoke to vendors this morning, matching mid and connection pipes cost about 600$. I can install myself, or I have to just run open headers and drive to an exhaust shop and have them make me the legs. I never understood why these cars are so all over the place. Some people say longtubes are a waste and others get 25+ hp, some people get 5. Doesn't make any sense to me.

You could probably have an exhaust shop slap together a mid pipe for less if you wanted. I wouldn't run open headers, it's stupid loud and the o2 sensor is usually too close to the end of the pipe.

You see varying reports because people are naive and inconsistent. Half of them report gains with other mods or a tune, some report the gains of JUST the headers, each person reporting probably has varying amounts of other mods, there's a wide range of headers available from $250 (new) ebay headers to $1600 kooks, etc.

Don't do shorties. The gains are not worth the money and/or effort to install them when you could just install longtubes.
The one exception being if you're going to do a turbo kit that bolts up to the stock headers.

Dynocom's (although they are extremely consistent) run pretty low compared to most dynos in my experience, at least 5% lower id say, so with your original setup without the LTs you would have been right around 450 on a dynojet. Which from what Ive seen on here is pretty accurate to others with the same mods and then those with LTs seem to be closer to the 470 range.